Mitsubishi Electric is launching a new range of low-voltage air circuit breakers to meet industry's anticipated demands for the 21st century. The Super AE-SW series of air circuit breakers offers a vast array of customer-friendly features in what is claimed to be the most compact size yet seen on the world market. With easy fitting, customised protection to meet the customer's exact needs, exceptional performance and enhanced network support for comprehensive monitoring and control, the Super AE-SW series offers a great deal within a small package.
The new range has been designed to give backwards compatibility with earlier models, making retrofitting quick and simple, with easy access to vertically arranged main terminations. All breakers in the range are available in both three- and four-pole versions, with fixed or draw-out configurations to suit the needs of users. Across the full range, encompassing 1000 to 4000A, there are just two case sizes, 300mm or 435mm wide, with a common depth of 368mm and height of 430mm.
The range of air circuit breakers/load interrupter switches is complemented by a comprehensive range of accessories, with many of these, such as the under-voltage trip, taking up no additional cubicle space since they are installed inside the breaker. All live components in the area of the control connections have IP20 protection. As standard, the breakers are delivered in versions suitable for use with all standard power supply voltages throughout the world and, as well as automatic reset, the breakers have a manual reset feature.
This new range also encompasses most requirements for individually configured protection. As well as the standard electronic trip relay, optional modules are also available for most common applications such as protecting transformers, cables, motors and generators. This ensures optimum protection for long-time, short-time and instantaneous tripping. All of the parameters can be individually adjusted to suit the application.
In addition to options such as pre-alarm, ground-fault and earth-leakage protection, the electronic trip relay provides complete protection against overloads and short-circuits, with each of the protection criteria being adjustable to meet the individual protection characteristics needed.
The main functions, including trip status, alarm and load current, are displayed on the LCD screen and can also be output as signals. When an alarm is initiated, the screen turns red to give an immediate visual confirmation of a fault. Where required, the protection of the N-pole can be reduced from 100 per cent to 50 per cent on the four-pole versions of the breakers.
Mitsubishi's Super AE-SW range delivers superb protection against thermal and mechanical damage caused by high short-circuit currents in power distribution systems, giving a surge withstand capacity of 12kV combined with a current breaking capacity of 65, 70 or 85kA. This makes the range suitable for the majority of low-voltage installations, providing very high-quality protection.
Maintenance engineers will be delighted to know that, because of the low number of components and ultra-high production standards, the Super AE-SW series is virtually maintenance-free and will provide a long service life. Moreover, optional network interface modules are now available for the range, meaning that the Super AE-SW series can be fully integrated into a network using Profibus/DP, CC-Link or Modbus protocols.
Consequently users can now monitor and control a number of parameters, including voltage, current or power, and, with an additional I/O module, breakers can be remotely turned off or on via the network too. In addition, via the network, alarms and error messages can be flagged up on the controlling PLC or factory SCADA system.
